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Ved bedømmelsen af prøvepræstationen vil der blive lagt vægt på, i hvor høj grad den studerende
- demonstrerer kendskab til emnet og de relevante tekster, teorier og problemstillinger.
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demonstrerer færdighed i litteratursøgning, selektion og disponering af et givet stofområde.
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bruger relevante fagbegreber, -teorier og -terminologier.
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anvender relevante analytiske metoder.
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giver en teoretisk reflekteret analyse af afgrænsede problemer.
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reflekterer over den anvendte teoris videnskabsteoretiske eller videnskabshistoriske egenart.
Human beings are, in the words of King Lear, 'forked animals': we are divided in two, because, on the one hand, we know that we are a kind of animal, while, on the other, we define ourselves as, exactly, not animals. Some would say that this ambiguity, or confusion, underlies many of the world's biggest problems.
In this course, we will look at some of the ways in which people have negotiated the human/animal and human/inhuman dualities from Shakespeare onwards (not forgetting some of the earlier sources that influenced Shakespeare - and all of us - such as the Book of Genesis, Ovid and Montaigne). On the way, we will read or re-read some of English literature's most eccentric and enjoyable texts (which you will now see in a new light, even if you thought that you knew them), culminating in two works - a novel and an odd, fictionalized plea or pseudo-plea for animal rights - by perhaps the most intellectually provocative writer now living, the South African Nobel prize-winner, J. M. Coetzee.
Our discussions will be informed by scientific and philosophical accounts of the human/animal from Descartes, through
By the end of the course, you can expect to have a new perspective on issues as diverse as talking parrots, the legal status and rights of gorillas and robots, and the use of dogs to terrorize suspected terrorists.
Dominic Rainsford
Undervisningen i disciplinen foregår på hold, og der lægges vægt på arbejdsformer, der kan omfatte læsning af primær- og sekundærtekster, mundtlige bidrag fra de studerende, holddiskussioner samt gruppearbejde.
Engelsk
The following books should be bought (in the editions specified):
William Shakespeare,
King Lear
, ed. R. A. Foakes (Arden Shakespeare, 1997).
William Shakespeare,
The Tempest
, ed. Peter Hulme and William H. Sherman (Norton Critical Edition, 2003).
Jonathan Swift,
Gulliver's Travels
, ed. Albert J. Rivero (Norton Critical Edition, 2001).
Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein
, 1881 Text, ed. Marilyn Butler (Oxford World's Classics, 1998).
H. G. Wells,
The
J. M. Coetzee,
Life & Times of Michael K
(Vintage, 2005).
J. M. Coetzee et al.,
The Lives of Animals
, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton UP, 1999).
This may seem like rather a lot of books, but they are mostly quite short. You will also be required to buy a course compendium which will include poems, essays, and other short texts.
The following books are particularly recommended as supplementary reading:
Erica Fudge, Ruth Gilbert and Susan Wiseman, eds.,
At the Borders of the Human: Beasts, Bodies and Natural Philosophy in the Early Modern Period
(Palgrave, 1999).
Gary Steiner,
Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy
(U of
Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum, eds.,
Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions
(
Keith Thomas,
Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in
Mundtlig eller skriftlig eller hjemmeopgave eller formidling eller aktiv, tilfredsstillende deltagelse i undervisningen.
Udvalget af eksamensformer afhænger af, hvilken kandidatlinie den studerende følger.
